The Twin Cities are full of cool old industrial buildings that have been adapted for reuse. One hot spot is the junction of Hennepin and Central Avenues, right on the border between Northeast and Southeast Minneapolis. There, a former mechanical contractor's warehouse is now home to the Red Stag Supperclub; its interior redesign earned it the distinction of being the first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified restaurant in the state.

A building that was once a garage houses Brasa, a Caribbean and pan-American rotisserie. The Aveda Institute, where you can get a haircut for $15, sprawls throughout a four-story 1920s historical landmark. And the 108-year-old Telephone Building is not only a residence for its owners, but also home to Vesper College, a tiny graduate school of fine arts and architecture that's pushing the boundaries of green building way beyond merely nontoxic and energy efficient.

Offering the only degree program of its kind in the country--a Master of Fine Arts in ecological architecture--Vesper College takes a philosophic approach to teaching its students to incorporate raw materials, as well as the earth's natural cycles, into the human-built world. "Ecological architecture is not just about creating spaces to protect us from the elements, but also about creating contemplative spaces that connect us to the earth," says Dan Noyes, the school's founder and dean. "We're looking for the poetry that can affect someone on a soul level."

The program at Vesper College--which currently has 10 students and has had as many as 20--is now four years old. In addition to offering traditional classes like drafting, Autocad, and zoning and codes, it requires students to study ecological principles in courses with titles like "Solar/Lunar Paths" and "Flora/Fauna and Micro-Climates." The two-year program prepares them to practice architectural, interior, and landscape design, install public art, manage construction projects, run design/build firms, and teach. And it marks a return to a small-is-beautiful approach to education, training designers to become makers who work with their hands.

Wood, Stone, Spit Spot

When you hang out at Vesper College, it's easy to find yourself in conversations about Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space, about fire and fields and finding meaning. But the focus is definitely on making things. "We're not anthropologists. We're not psychologists," says Noyes. "We're materialists."

You can see that in the school's space: Light shines from garden-level windows onto students' rock-strewn desks and cedar workbenches, onto the building's old stone and brick walls. In the library, hand-built bookshelves are made of split timbers instead of sanded and finished boards. "The most dangerous piece of equipment at Vesper is a miter saw," says Noyes, noting that the "unfinished" way raw materials are used here has turned off a few would-be graduates with backgrounds in finishing carpentry. But that--and the focus on process--is exactly why other students appreciate the school.

Aaron Squadroni, who oversees a studio class and is one of Vesper's four faculty members, points out that in many design programs, students never get past the drawing stage. But at Vesper College, students regularly move back and forth between drawing and intensive hands-on making. "The materials tell you what sort of logic makes sense for a project," he says.

Squadroni likens the school to Auburn University's Rural Studio, created by architecture professors Dennis K. Ruth and the late Sam Mockbee, which aims to improve living conditions in rural Alabama. There, students design and build innovative, natural homes with inexpensive, local materials for real clients. Similarly, Vesper College students take on design projects that serve the community each term.

This spring a group of eight students designed "Spit Spot" for a young girl who loves Mary Poppins ("Come along, children. Spit spot!") and lost her sight to ocular cancer. "Spit Spot" is a curved stone exploration wall with cedar stanchions that hold upright stacks of Chilton limestone. This tactile treat, situated off the family's back deck, has small river rocks embedded into a smoothly-sanded bench, a hole in the wall with built-in dishes for Mancala (a family of stone games), and a brass plaque in Braille reads: "The east wind moves the earth and the west wind brings it back." Whimsical wooden leaves float overhead. Their six-year-old client loves it.

Several years ago students were tasked with finding a way to keep water away from the foundation of a dentist's building in Northeast. The result was "Scuppers Bubbling Route," which turned a water problem into a functional work of art. Now, when water comes out of a downspout, it winds through a choreographed procession of marble and Kasota stone, brass and steel, to a buried gravel drain in the middle of the yard.

A Human-Scale Enterprise

Noyes discovered the Telephone Building while redesigning its interior a few years ago for new owners who now live in its top floors. They wanted someone to make good use of the large building's lower floors. Noyes, who has taught interior design, art, and architecture at the University of Minnesota, Augsburg College, and The Art Institutes International Minnesota, had long been thinking about starting a school of his own. It was a good match.

Having seen the budgets of several large educational institutions, Noyes realized that if a school were run on a small enough scale, it could make financial sense--even with only 10 students enrolled and a modest private-school tuition of $7500 per semester. Not only does Vesper College's small size keep it financially manageable, it keeps the learning environment intimate.

Noyes likes things to be on a human scale. "If our country was made up of a lot of little places," says Noyes, "just imagine how much healthier we'd be."

Grassroots Advertising, Long-Term Thinking

Vesper College takes a very personal approach to attracting students, all of whom found out about the school through local grassroots advertising. One read about it on Craigslist, another because a friend of his found a Vesper flier posted in a coffee shop. Some studied with the school's faculty at other institutions, other students came to the school's free summer workshops (this summer, workshops will cover things like solar power and abstract paintings in dwelling spaces) and wanted more.

By the time students graduate from Vesper, their work has appeared in at least nine open-to-the-public gallery shows held at the school. At a recent event there was work inspired by glaciers and the erratic nature of stones, and by the way shells invite us toward hidden spaces.

Graduates are already working as full-time professors, as designers, and for architecture firms. They're making their mark on the local design scene--and internationally. Take Rachel Vig, who works as an interior designer at the Minneapolis-based architectural firm Ellerbe Becket. She was recently able to incorporate natural light motifs into a hospital chapel in Dubai.

Noyes' next hope for the school is that graduates will get contractors' licenses and start design/build firms focused on ecologically-oriented spaces. Already they're engaged in questions about the nature of building in the Twin Cities. Vesper College students founded and now host meetings of The EcoArch Guild, open to anyone interested in pushing for buildings that last more than 100 years--like the very building the school is housed in. After a century of building based on short-term thinking, and short-lived materials, it's good to know there are local folks who care about making soulful places built to last.

This summer, Vesper College opens its doors to the public June 7 to August 25 for free Monday and Wednesday night workshops.

Karen Olson is a Minneapolis-based writer and editor whose work has appeared in Utne Reader, Natural Home, Ode, Experience Life, Minnesota Monthly and Public Art Review.